


Short Days Ago

by Miko



Series: We Shall Keep The Faith [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Love Triangles, Open Relationships, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 04:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3923131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miko/pseuds/Miko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha's just trying to do the right thing and be the better woman. Why is Steve making it so damned hard?</p><p> </p><p>This fic should be read in sequence with the rest of the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Short Days Ago

The moment Natasha crossed the threshold of her quarters, she knew she wasn’t alone. There wasn’t any one concrete thing she could have pointed to; it wasn’t like she left a hair draped over the knob or a penny wedged between door and jamb that would drop if someone opened it.

Although to be fair, she might have done something like that if it hadn’t been an electronic sliding door.

She didn’t let her gait hitch in the slightest, continuing forward as if she’d noticed nothing out of the ordinary. She did pull her stun rods from their holsters, because they were quieter to draw than her pistols. The intruder was in the living room, just out of sight of the door. They weren’t moving, but she could hear the faint sound of one person breathing if she strained.

It shouldn’t have been possible for anyone to get in here. This was Avengers HQ, for crying out loud. Everything was biometrically controlled and there were support staff everywhere at all times, even in the dead of the night. It would take even a hacker as good as Stark at least a minute to break through, and someone would have noticed a stranger at her door by then.

It took her three steps to get from the door to the corner into the living room, and she tensed as she took the last one, prepared to swing around the wall and dive into a roll. She should come up right in front of him or her, under their guard, and once she’d stunned them she’d have a chance to pull her pistol...

“Natasha, it’s me,” Steve’s voice broke into her planning a split second before she launched herself.

Now she did stumble a little, and cursed under her breath as she recovered from the ungraceful moment. At least Steve couldn’t see it with the wall between them. She re-holstered her stun rods as she walked into the living room and found him sitting in the chair in the corner, one ankle resting on his other knee as he waited. 

As she came into the room he stood up. He almost always did that for women, yet another anachronism he couldn’t quite shake, but this time Natasha didn’t think he’d done it for the sake of politeness. Not with the way he’d crossed his arms and was glaring at her.

“How did you get in here?” she demanded, frowning. “I never gave you my door code.” He’d given her his a couple of months ago, both for his rooms here at HQ and at the Tower. The gesture had made her nervous, afraid it was supposed to be some kind of sign of a deepening relationship, but he’d never seemed upset that she hadn’t reciprocated. And it did make it easier to simply slip into his bed if she came back late after a hard solo mission and wanted the company.

His answering smile had a sardonic edge to it. “You and I both have override codes for every door in the base,” he reminded her.

So they did. Natasha had foolishly assumed that ‘every door’ didn’t include their personal quarters, but clearly that was wasn’t the case. “I’m getting sloppy,” she muttered as she started divesting herself of her weapons. “I should have considered that. So exactly how often have you broken into my rooms to snoop around? I didn’t expect that from you, Rogers.”

“This is the first time, and I didn’t snoop,” he assured her. The funny thing was, she actually believed him. “I just couldn’t seem to pin you down any other way. You’ve been avoiding me ever since you left New York.”

“I’m sorry, are we in high school?” Natasha asked, incredulous. Not that she’d gone to high school herself, but she’d once posed as a student for nearly a month as a cover. The sheer levels of bitchy snobbery and social drama the teens routinely engaged in had left her with the feeling that she hadn’t really missed much. “I haven’t been _avoiding_ you, I’ve been busy. You’ve more than had your hands full getting Peggy caught up on the modern world, so I’ve been doing my job and most of yours, too.”

Barely a day after she’d left them at the Tower Steve had made the decision to move Peggy to HQ after all. He’d said he was worried about innocent bystanders if things got rough when Bucky did make an attempt to get to her, and Natasha had to admit that was a valid concern. It had now been a week and a half with no sign of the Winter Soldier, and she’d been doing her best to stay out of Steve and Peggy’s way as much as was possible in a closed environment.

Which was not the same thing as avoiding him, damn it. She was trying to be gracious about the situation, and she didn’t much appreciate having the gesture thrown back in her face like this.

“You’ve hardly said three words to either of us since I brought her here,” Steve countered, eyes narrowed. “I told you we needed to talk when I got off the jet, and you’ve been avoiding me ever since. I told Peggy your message wasn’t a Dear John letter but now I’m starting to wonder if she was right.”

“I was trying to save you the trouble,” Natasha said, throwing up her hands. “We don’t need to have The Talk, Steve. I can read the writing on the wall. I’m not upset.”

“Are we even having the same conversation here?” he asked. “What exactly is it you think I wanted to talk to you about?”

Sighing, Natasha ran a hand through her hair, wondering if she could get away with pleading a headache and shooing him out to ‘talk’ later. She wouldn’t even be lying, for once. “Look, I get it. You want to break it to me gently, apologize and make sure we’re still friends, and I’m telling you that you don’t _need_ to. It’s not like there was ever any question of which way you’d fall on this, and what we had was always meant to be temporary.”

“Was it? Is it still?” Steve took a step forward, decreasing the distance between them considerably. Natasha stood her ground. She knew him well enough to know he was trying for intimate, not intimidating, but the latter was what it would become if she acted like she needed the space between them.

All the more so because it felt like she did need it. He was too close; she could feel his body heat radiating across the space between them, and the familiar scent of him wrapping around her. It made it harder to think, harder to be reasonable about the whole mess, harder to accept that she had to let him go for both their sakes.

“Yes it was and you know it,” Natasha snapped at him, the pain in her chest making her more irritable than she probably should have been. “The only reason you’re even here is that you feel like you made a commitment to me and you’re guilty about ‘betraying’ that. I’m telling you, it’s fine. You should stop worrying and just go be with her.”

“Shouldn’t that be my choice? Which one of you I want to be with?” He didn’t raise his volume, but the intensity in his voice made it seem like he had. “What makes you think you get to make that decision for me?”

“For god’s sake, Steve, your Long Lost Love is back from the dead,” Natasha said, stressing the words she had mentally capitalized. “How is there even a choice to make?”

It wasn’t that she wanted him out of her life. She’d gotten comfortable having him there. Maybe too comfortable, because the thought of losing him kept needling at her with spikes of jealousy and stabs of regret. She never should have let it reach the point where she couldn’t easily walk away, damn it, she knew better than that. 

Part of her was glad for the excuse to put distance between them so she could gather her emotional defenses again. At least this way she didn’t have to also deal with the guilt of leaving Steve alone. 

She was grateful for that. Really, she was.

He stared at her like he was trying to read her soul, and Natasha put up every barrier she had to block him. The last thing she wanted was for him to end up feeling bad about ‘dumping’ her. That would defeat the whole point of her being gracious about it.

When he finally spoke, his voice was hard. “Still so damned sure you know me, and still so damned wrong. I thought there was a choice, but apparently I’m wasting my time here. If you want me gone that bad, I can take a hint.”

Natasha stood stunned as he pushed past her and headed for the door. He didn’t look back once, though the tight line of his shoulders said he knew her eyes were on him. The electronic doors couldn’t be slammed, but she got the impression he might have done exactly that if he could have.

She tried to convince herself that she was misinterpreting his words. That he hadn’t just told her he’d chosen _her_ over _Peggy Carter_ , because that was completely ridiculous. The only reason he would possibly do that was if he felt some sort of obligation to keep his promise of commitment to her, and she’d told him flat out that he didn’t have to. And he’d taken that as a sign that she was trying to get rid of him?

Jolting forward, Natasha stormed out of her suite so fast the door barely had time to open before she hit it. “Rogers!”

He was across the hall outside his own quarters, hand already on the plate to open the door, but he let it slide closed again and turned back to her. “You got something else to say, Romanoff? ‘Cause I think you’ve made your position pretty damned clear.”

“Are you out of your mind? Do I have to actually follow through on that threat to shoot you?” Natasha demanded. “You’ve got a _second chance_ , everything you’ve ever wanted is right there in front of you through some impossible miracle, and you’re going to toss that aside. Did you even _kiss_ her, or did you throw that chance away, too?”

With the way sparks had been flying between Steve and Peggy as they left for their dance, Natasha had been sure they wouldn’t be able to resist temptation. She’d figured Steve might be worried about what she’d have to say on the matter, which was why she’d left him the message with explicit permission, and made sure Peggy would know Natasha was giving her blessing as well. How could he have resisted? _Why_ would he have resisted?

“You don’t know nearly as much about the situation as you think you do.” Steve crossed his arms again, staring her down, though he didn’t try to close the distance this time. “Yeah, I fuckin’ kissed her. Is that what this is really about? You can dish it out, but you can’t take it?”

“This is not because I’m jealous,” Natasha exclaimed. How the hell had he gotten that idea? She’d done everything she could to show that she was the opposite of jealous, that there were no hard feelings between them if he went with Peggy. And yet there he stood with his Brooklyn accent getting thicker with every word, so angry he was swearing at her, like she’d done something completely inappropriate.

“Uh, you guys know you’re having this fight in the middle of the hallway, right?” Sam broke in, hesitant and embarrassed.

Natasha had been so wrapped up in the argument she hadn’t even noticed anyone else approaching. Steve kept his gaze firmly on hers, and she wasn’t going to be the first to look away, but judging by the awkward shuffling from the side Sam wasn’t the only one standing there. Maximoff or Rhodes, presumably. Vision would have just strolled on through, oblivious to or uncaring of the human drama.

“So find another hallway, Sam.” Steve’s voice was cold and unyielding, the sort of tone he used on an enemy who had really pissed him off, not on his friends.

Natasha was pretty sure she heard Sam gulp. “Yessir. Sorry, man. You two keep right on doing what you’re doing, ain’t none of our business.”

Footsteps retreated rapidly, but neither Steve nor Natasha spoke until the sounds had long since faded. “So much for the open secret of our relationship,” Natasha finally sighed. At least the intrusion had successfully diffused the worst of the heavy atmosphere.

Steve snorted, a sound of mixed amusement and exasperation. “I’m pretty sure the ‘secret’ part didn’t last more than five minutes after we got back to HQ from Chernobyl.” He finally broke eye contact as he turned and entered his suite. He keyed the door to stay open behind him, which Natasha took as an invitation to join him and continue their discussion in privacy.

She wasn’t sure following him into his territory was the best way to hold her own in this battle, but she also didn’t really want to stay hanging around in the hall. All of the Avengers’ personal quarters were in this block, including the rooms they’d assigned to Peggy, which meant she might well be the next person to stumble over them. That would be more than just awkward.

Reluctantly Natasha crossed the hall and entered Steve’s rooms, slapping the door control as she passed so it would close and lock. The moment she was in his space some Pavlovian reflex made the worst of her tension start to drain away. She’d spent a lot of hours in here with him, and in some ways felt more at ease here than in her own cold, sterile rooms. From the first time he’d invited her in this had been a place she associated with comfort and pleasure, and it was hard to shake that.

Steve was watching her again, but at least he didn’t have his arms crossed this time. Maybe the fact that she’d let him take the battle to his territory had made him feel less antagonistic, too. He leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, eyes sharp but his thumbs hooked over his belt and hands framing the buckle.

“It’s not about jealousy,” Natasha repeated. The difference in volume between this and the previous time she’d said it made her realize that she’d been shouting. If she were a different woman, she’d have blushed. “Look, Steve, you’ve been incredibly good about following our rules. I honestly didn’t think you’d make it a month before you tapped out. I might have been pushing a little to see if you would really be able to handle it.”

“I noticed,” he said, his voice dry but a spark of laughter in his eyes. “I think you managed to flirt with every attractive, available person on the base. I particularly enjoyed the show you put on with Lillian. When you finally gave up trying to make me cry uncle I was almost disappointed.”

Lips twitching with a smile, Natasha shook her head. “The point is, it’s worked for us, and been better than I ever thought it could be. You gave me the space I needed and never said a word of protest, never let it bother you enough to show. I’m impressed.”

“Then why the hell are you trying to end it?” He frowned at her, brow furrowed in a kind of adorably confused look.

“Because in all that time, _you’ve_ never so much as looked at another woman - aside from watching me experiment with Lillian’s lip piercing, apparently.” Natasha approached him, reaching out to put her hands over his and looking up into his eyes. For once she didn’t try to hide anything, because he needed to see that she was being sincere. “You’re just not built for anything but devotion and monogamy, Steve. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You deserve someone who can give you that, instead of someone you have to make accommodations for. I always knew it would happen eventually. The fact that it’s Peggy is just... cosmic icing on the cake. I’m not going to try to stand between you. I don’t _want_ to.”

“I told you why I don’t respond to people’s interest in me,” he reminded her. “I don’t want to lead them on. I thought I couldn’t feel that way about anyone else because I was still in love with Peggy, but... apparently I can only really care for people I already _know_. People I trust. And I’m not interested in getting to know anybody else, I’ve got enough on my plate. It’s not that I’ve been exclusive to you because that’s all I’m capable of, Nat. I just didn’t find anyone else attractive enough to bother with.”

He pulled his hands out from under hers and lifted them to cup her face gently. “I know we meant it to be temporary between us, but I don’t think that’s what I want anymore. The rules don’t have to change, I’m fine with whatever space you need to be happy. When I was with Peggy I realized that as much as I still love her, I only wanted to be with her if I could convince her to let me have you, too.”

Natasha finally had to look away, because the tenderness in his eyes was killing her. This wasn’t how this whole thing was supposed to go. He wasn’t following the damned script, and without it, she didn’t know what to say next. Normally she was the queen of improvisation and thinking on her feet, but that was only easy when it was lies she was tossing out. She didn’t want to be lying to him right now.

God, she was in _so_ far over her head if she couldn’t bring herself to lie.

“Well, if you do convince her, I’m fine with you having whatever space you need, too,” she finally told him. “I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you, it’s not really the sort of thing most people are willing to do, but it’s on the table.”

“Actually, it’s not.” Steve sighed, and swept one thumb lightly over her lips. “Though I’ll admit I was damned tempted to try after that dance. But I’m not going to make a move on my best friend’s girl.”

“Your best...” Natasha lifted her eyes again and stared at him for a moment. “She’s with Barnes? When the hell did that happen?”

“Right before she was captured, apparently.” Steve shrugged, and she could see that it bothered him more than he was willing to admit, but he was doing a fairly good job of pushing the feelings away. “God knows he’s going to need her. Don’t you dare think that means I’m only choosing you because she’s not available, Natasha.”

The thought had crossed her mind. Natasha considered it, and discarded it quickly. Steve was too damned earnest to be lying about his feelings for her. He really would have chosen her over Peggy, as unfathomable as that seemed to Natasha.

“If you regain your sanity at some point in the future, I still won’t be upset with you,” she told him, which was as close as she could bring herself to acknowledging how incredibly glad she was not to lose him.

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Steve leaned down and kissed her briefly, then smiled. “Now come and have dinner with me and Peggy, so she can stop fretting over whether it’s her fault you and I are having problems. I think you two really are gonna be friends, if you let it happen.”

Natasha winced at the information that Peggy had thought Natasha was upset with her. “I’ll make it up to her,” she promised. “Dinner sounds good. Although you realize we’re going to be in for some serious ribbing from Sam and whoever was with him? Once you apologize for chewing him out, anyway.”

“Maximoff, and yes,” Steve sighed. “We have only ourselves to blame. I suppose it had to happen eventually.” 

He kissed her again, and this time Natasha clung to the back of his neck and didn’t let him go, returning the kiss with passion. She’d missed him, missed the feel and the taste and the scent of him, and now that she had it back she couldn’t imagine how she’d have been able to let it go.

Nothing this good ever stayed in her life for long, but it appeared she wasn’t going to lose him just yet. All she could do was to enjoy this while she had it, and hope the fallout wouldn’t be more than she could handle in the end.

Even though she was increasingly certain that it would be - and even more afraid that it already was.


End file.
